


Never To Overflow

by tiffthom



Series: The Priestess and the Demon [6]
Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-01 23:12:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11496765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiffthom/pseuds/tiffthom
Summary: First meetings are always the easiest. There is nothing to expect.





	Never To Overflow

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this ficlet ages ago. It precedes all of my published works featuring SessKik and for some reason, I was never too fond of it. Then, I shared it with bawgdan, author of the Peculiar Art of Dying (read it), and she made me see it in a new light so I am sharing it with you guys. I hope you enjoy it. 
> 
> I can't believe SessKik invented transcendent love :P.

The water trickling down and replenishing the brook is warm from the sun, but Kikyō cannot feel it. She tells herself that she's unable to feel anything anymore. 

 _Tessaiga_ is beyond his reach, and his father's intentions are even harder to grasp. _Tenseiga_ pulses, but Sesshōmaru ignores it. He tells himself that this isn't his destiny. 

Kikyō finishes her bath, and rests against a tree to contemplate next steps. Naraku’s demonic energy is spreading and every village that receives her is plagued. She's always been confident in her sacred powers, but she considers the likelihood that she’s waltzing into a trap. The _thing_ she once regarded as Onigumo surely counts on the possibility that she's just as human as she believes he is. Far from it. As far as the earth is from the clouds. It's just that she isn't able to look away when others are hurting. 

Kikyō supposes it's just too rooted in her; being a priestess in every way that sends chills down people’s spines making them confess all of their sins, hoping they’ll see tomorrow. Despite this, Naraku hungers for her life. 

“Would it truly be such a terrible thing to die?” she questions herself, wondering if she’ll find peace the second time. 

Soft chuckles come out of her and she confuses the feeling of them with warmth again. She might as well be a fool since she knows it’s pointless to dance with delusions as a child of Death. There is nothing to warm her heart or make her soul glow. She is merely a ghost whose body of bones and grave soil breathes and suffers fatigue that can only be sustained by becoming a thing from hell. It’s hard to pinpoint the moment that heaven eluded her grasp. Maybe it was as she teemed with enough hatred to fire an arrow and quench her shattering sentiments for Inuyasha, piercing his chest, ending whatever she told herself was love. 

“That was it,” she says heavily as if it’s hard to breathe. 

A holy woman is not supposed to hate anything. 

This is the reason Naraku must die. Kikyō curses herself because even now, a man rests at the heart of her mission. Destroying Naraku should only be a matter of what should be done, but she requires to be free of this silly thing called love that won't even allow her to rest in peace. Stopping Naraku’s sick affection for her seems very much like freedom. Her thoughts consume her so she doesn't sense when she's no longer alone. 

“I am surprised you've yet to draw your bow.” Sesshōmaru gazes at the waterfall keeping the brook alive, and it escapes him how there is always enough water, never too much. 

Kikyō stirs, knowing that it's time to collect more souls. Her spiritual awareness has begun to wane. She stands to her feet and passes Sesshōmaru without a glance. 

“As if my arrows or effort should be wasted on the likes of you.” 

His hair is the color of Inuyasha’s. The gold in his eyes is like Inuyasha’s. Her knees and ankles feel like jelly and it is definitely time to feed. 

The coldness in her voice echoes something in his own and a feeling, that nothing has been good enough to garner from him – ever, bubbles up from his depths. This priestess with the power to dispatch a son of the revered Inu no Taishō, never mind that he's only a half demon, intrigues Sesshōmaru.

 _Tenseiga_ whispers at his hip, confirming that there is something not quite right about her. That much, his nose had already told him. She smells like a cemetery. His eyes concur. After fifty years, she’s maintained youthfulness, the crippling beauty of a new woman and one more than acquainted with both good and evil. He doesn't want to know how any of it's possible. It has nothing to do with him. 

He'd planned to avoid her, but his vendetta against Inuyasha always beckons his attention. Kikyō is connected to that. _Tessaiga_ , forged from his father's fang couldn't be claimed while his little brother hung on a tree. Kikyō had done that. 

“I no longer have any interest in him. My only target is Naraku so you needn't worry.” 

Her ability to divine his thoughts surprises Sesshōmaru, but it's nothing he'd waste too much time considering. She looks at him, and once his eyes come back to hers, she commands whatever power she has to peer inside of him to disappear like the wind. 

Jaken arrives and as usual, the quietude is disturbed. 

“Lord Sesshōmaruuu! I've found you, master.” Jaken huffs like his chest has a hole in it. 

He's winded no doubt from trying to catch up to Sesshōmaru and lugging around the obstinate A-Un who prefers to go along with Rin on his back at a gentle pace. Sesshōmaru disregards the imp’s theatrics and resumes his journey to Tōtōsai’s. He's certain the old swordsmith knows more than he's let on. 

Kikyō watches as they fly off and she swears that Sesshōmaru looks back at her, but it's likely just the way his eyes had carved out things she wants to forget. She hadn't been given long to get to know and fall in love with Inuyasha. He never talked about his older brother. 

 _“He hates me. There really isn't much more to say.”_

Inuyasha phrased it with all the gruffness that he attempted to make his trademark, but she could feel something more and she hoped to end his loneliness. 

Now, Sesshōmaru mirrors her, and the irony is strange like going back to a place that is cruelly unfamiliar. Nothing but contempt for Inuyasha whets her appetite. Her heart aches for his suffering, but it’s better just to never cross paths with him again. 

The silver dragons that keep a piece of her above ground gather around to rejuvenate her with spirits that won't pass on, and her anger boils. 

“My only target is Naraku.” 

Even dead women lie.


End file.
